Family and friends bid sad farewell to Caspar Blackburn with a balloon release

One of the saddest moments ever to take place on the canalside in Sale happened on a grey drizzly evening when friends and family said their goodbyes to their friend Caspar Blackburn.

And a poignant row of single giant orange daisies now stretches along the railings at the canal in a moving tribute to Caspar.

Caspar Blackburn hadn’t been seen since the early hours of last Sunday morning

His friends chose to bid farewell to him with a release of mainly orange balloons outside the Slug and Lettuce where he had been on a night out with his mates in the hours before he went missing.

The last known movements of Caspar were seen on CCTV from the pub, released by police in the week long search for 22-year-old.

Police were called to reports of a man’s body being found in the canal near Springfield Road, not far away from the Slug and Lettuce, on Saturday morning.

Since then his friends, who have worked tirelessly alongside the police to find Caspar, posted their tributes.

Billy Hayes, one of his closest friends changed his profile picture to a black and white photo of him and Caspar as teenagers.

Billy paid his own tribute to Caspar and thanked everyone for helping in the search and for the support for the family. He also posted a video of the balloon release on his Facebook page.

Thank you everyone for your support during this tough time! it's amazing to see how many people cared about him.Amazing tribute to my best mate, sleep tight mate, we'll meet again one day. Rest In Peace man you will always be in my heart.

He said: “Thank you everyone for your support during this tough time! it’s amazing to see how many people cared about him.
Amazing tribute to my best mate, sleep tight mate, we’ll meet again one day.
Rest In Peace man you will always be in my heart.”

So great has been the outpouring of support and offers of money, that his family have set up a Just Giving page to help raise funds toward the £5,000 costs for Caspar’s funeral.

The family say that they set the amount at £2,200 because Caspar was 22. Within a few hours of it being posted almost two thirds of that had been donated. Given the expense of the funeral, when they least expected to pay for one, any extra money will go towards the overall cost.